| Tech revolution | As Joe Biden expresses concern about supply chains of computer chips, Xi Jinping is equally worried. At an annual session of China's legislature kicking off this week, China's leader will lay out more details on plans to become self-sufficient in sensitive cutting-edge technologies. Barry Naughton, one of the world's top experts on China's economy, calls the ambition "bigger than anything Japan, South Korea or the U.S. ever did." - Stocks dropped across Asia after China's top banking regulator said he's "very worried" about risks emerging from bubbles in global financial markets and the nation's property sector.
Migration talks | President Biden told his Mexico counterpart, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, that he agreed on the need to increase legal paths to immigration, Mexican sources said. Nacha Cattan and Max de Haldevang report that during the two leaders' virtual meeting yesterday, Biden also said that he was open to sharing vaccines with the U.S.'s southern neighbor. - Chuck Schumer faces his first major test as Senate majority leader with the chamber set to take up Biden's $1.9 trillion Covid relief package this week amid simmering tension between the Democratic Party's moderate and progressive factions.
Extremist threat | Racially motivated and anti-government extremists have emerged as the biggest domestic terrorist threats in the U.S., Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray will tell senators today in his first public testimony since Biden took office. Wray is likely to face questions on whether law enforcement agencies were aware of the danger to legislators when violent supporters of then-President Trump stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.  An armed demonstrator outside the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort on Jan. 17. Photographer: Scotty Perry/Bloomberg Appeasing the base | One week after the head of oil giant Petrobras was replaced, Brazil's government announced it will ditch a federal tax on diesel and gas used by families for cooking. Higher taxes on financial institutions and the chemical industry are to offset the lost revenue. The move is a sop to truck drivers who make up President Jair Bolsonaro's voter base and comes as his popularity drops after the expiry of a program of pandemic aid to the poor. Against the tide | U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is warning that tax increases and spending cuts will be needed to make up for the 300 billion pounds ($418 billion) of aid handed out in the year since Covid-19 struck. But as he prepares to deliver his annual budget tomorrow, Sunak's determination to bring Britain's public finances under control strikes a very different tone from the consensus in the U.S. and the European Union, where talk of debt consolidation is being pushed back until after the pandemic. What to Watch -
The Biden administration is preparing to impose sanctions against Russia over the poisoning and jailing of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, according to three congressional aides briefed on the plans. -
Gunmen in Nigeria today released school girls abducted Feb. 26 from a secondary school in the country's northern state of Zamfara, the police said. -
Zimbabwe's second vice president, Kembo Mohadi, resigned yesterday, after claiming he was the victim of a campaign to damage his reputation over allegations he was involved in multiple "immoral" relationships. - German Chancellor Angela Merkel was among those to congratulate Mikhail Gorbachev on his 90th birthday today. The last leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev helped to end the Cold War and allow the largely peaceful transition to democracy across the eastern bloc in 1989.
And finally ... There's one thing certain about the rollout of billions of dollars worth of Covid-19 vaccines: Thieves are going to try to steal some of it. As Thomas Buckley writes, Interpol in December issued an orange alert notice warning that it expects a dramatic rise in armed robberies of the shipments. That's prompted freight companies to adapt their playbook developed to fight the $40 billion in theft from shippers every year, employing more manpower, specialist training for drivers and technical wizardry such as digital locks that only allow truck doors to be opened remotely.  Police escort a truck carrying the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Irxleben, Germany, on Jan. 8. Photographer: Ronny Hartmann/AFP via Getty Images | 
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